Pelosi, Democrats Pounce on GOP Infighting Over Immigration

The dissension among Republicans over immigration that flared anew this week, sparking talk of an open revolt against Speaker John A. Boehner, gave Democrats a rhetorical opening that Nancy Pelosi and others were more than happy to fill Thursday.

Speaking to reporters at her weekly news conference, the House minority leader said she believes Boehner supports action on immigration, but is hamstrung by hard-liners in the GOP.

“He ran it up the flagpole. We saluted, his caucus cut the flagpole down,” she said.

Pelosi suggested the speaker follow the precedent set earlier this year on the debt-ceiling vote, when the Ohio Republican allowed a vote on a bill that lacked the support of most of the GOP caucus.

“If you can bring a bill to the floor where 199 of your members are voting in opposition to your own vote as speaker, you can bring an immigration bill to the floor,” the California Democrat said.

Pelosi’s comments came after House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer also took a shot at Boehner, who is under fire from members of his own conference who didn’t appreciate the speaker’s mocking remarks last week at a Rotary Club luncheon.

Boehner isn’t just taking punches from the Democrats: He’s also feeling heat from Republicans who are still fuming over the Rotary Club remarks, despite his clear-the-air meeting Tuesday.

A group of 10 or so House conservatives met in secret in Sen. Ted Cruz’s office on Tuesday night to discuss immigration and other issues, including whether there should be changes in House leadership if the GOP, as expected, retains control of the chamber after the November elections.

And then on Wednesday, another 10 conservatives or so had another meeting — this one exclusively about immigration.

Alabama Republican Mo Brooks, who told CQ Roll Call he was the only person to attend both meetings, said conservatives are worried Boehner may push an immigration rewrite.

“More and more House members are coming to the realization that if the House leadership does, in fact, push amnesty, we’re going to have to go to extraordinary measures in order to protect American families from lost jobs and declining incomes,” Brooks said.

And asked if he thought there would be a revolt if Boehner put an immigration plan on the floor, Brooks was cagey.

“That depends on what you mean by the word ‘revolt,'” he said. “There would certainly be a lot of congressman that believe American citizens should take priority over illegal aliens, and I’m one of them.”

But Boehner has repeatedly insisted he has no intention of going against the will of his conference. And the will of his conference — the majority of it, anyway — is to not address immigration.

That doesn’t mean the GOP is without immigration proposals.

Texas Republican Joe L. Barton appeared on a state political talk show over the weekend to announce that he planned to introduce an immigration bill that would include a path to legalization — though not citizenship — for adults who came to the United States illegally but have not committed any other crime.

Asked if he thought his bill would get floor time, Barton said he wasn’t holding his breath.

“Look: I’m putting it out there just so there is a bill that people can look,” Barton said.

And he noted that this effort wasn’t “sanctioned” by GOP leadership.

“This is purely an individual initiative, and I’m trying to do what I think is the right public policy,” he said.

But conservatives simply don’t seem to think an immigration rewrite is the right public policy. And without them on board, Congress probably can’t get anything done.

Of course, that doesn’t mean an immigration overhaul is dead. As conservatives are quick to point out, President Barack Obama explicitly said in his State of the Union address, if Congress won’t act, he will.

“I think the president has pretty well proven that he has significant disrespect for the Constitution,” Iowa Republican Steve King said Thursday.

King, one of the most vocal critics of an immigration overhaul in Congress, said he was worried the president would act unilaterally on immigration.

And he said if the president didn’t respect Article I of the Constitution, outlining the legislative branch, he didn’t have much hope that the judicial branch, Article III, could stop the president.

“So I don’t know what Congress can do,” he said. “We can make noise, and we need to do that, but I don’t know how we change a president that has determined to release a couple hundred thousand felons on to the streets because he says that that’s not a danger to our society.”

Comments (24)

MrArchieBunker

May 1, 2014
7 p.m.

GOP / Republicans & Tea Partiers have an Illness that is worse than cancer its called OBAMISITIS :-).

EDUCATE YOURSELF. GET THE TRUE FACTS NOT POLITICAL SPIN & LIES.

GOP=GRUMPY OLD PEOPLE

GOP=GRUMPY OLD PUTZSE’S

GOP= GRAND OBSTRUCTION PARTY. :):)

By 2016 another 5 to 10.000.000 republican senior voters will pass away. And by 2020 another 10 to 20.000.000 million will pass away , so will the GOP= GRUMPY OLD PEOPLE .
There are 50,000 Latinos coming of age to vote every month= over 3.000.000 THREE MILLION NEW VOTERS for 2016 AND ANOTHER 5.000.000 VOTERS IN 2020.THEY ALL ARE CERTAINLY GOING TO VOTE REPUBLICANS :) HA HA HA THANKS FOR THE LAUGH :):):)

The REPUBLICANS ARE A DO NOTHING PARTY. HERE ARE THE FACTS ON IMMIGRATION REFORM.

For all the tough talk about immigration reform, the House has done NOTHING on border security and the Senate has.

Likewise, they’ve done NOTHING to solve the visa overstay issue, workplace verification or the H-1B visa problem. It is well and good to vaguely declare the Gang of Eight bill insufficient, but certainly it does more for border security and these other issues than House Republicans have managed to do (which is NOTHING).

The argument that the House can do NOTHING runs headlong into anti-immigration forces hype about the out-of-control border and the supposed economic burdens of illegal immigration. If it’s such a horrible problem — immigrants pouring over the border and all — why is the REPUBLICAN CONTROLLED HOUSE JUST SITTING THERE?????

Another Year of OPEN BORDERS
Another Year of BORDER CROSSINGS,
Another Year of WORK SITE VERIFICATIONS,
Another Year of VISA OVER STAYS,

In poll after poll, roughly three-quarters of Americans say they support a path to citizenship along the lines laid out in the Senate bill, which calls for a minimum wait of 13 years for most illegal immigrants. In a Gallup poll last month, for example, 87 percent said they would vote in favor of a bill that “would allow illegal immigrants living in the U.S. the opportunity to become citizens after a long waiting period if they paid taxes and a penalty, pass a criminal background check, and learn English.”

Twelve percent said they would oppose such a measure. That is the 12 percent to whom House Republicans are listening. And 12 percent is a long, long way from 51 percent.

By rejecting immigration, the Republicans in the House are sending a message that they’re not interested in being part of the solution. “If you only have to worry about your right flank — you don’t have to worry about a general election, don’t have to worry about governing — that’s a pretty easy gig, isn’t it? What the hell is the point?”

Paul Ryan The Budget Committee chairman, whose next job may be head of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, makes his case based on numbers.

‘‘Baby boomers are retiring to the tune of 10,000 people a day for the next 10 years,’’ Ryan said. ‘‘We’re going to have labor shortages in this country in the next decade. We need to have our immigration system prepared for that. It’s going to take time to do that and that’s why I think we need to do it now.’’

If immigration reform crashes, there will be one and only one reason: a failure of leadership by House Republicans.
The votes to enact meaningful reform already exist. The only question is whether House Republicans will allow them to be cast.

Ironweeds

May 2, 2014
9:57 a.m.

You need to show more respect for the folks paying the bills. Those latino parasites will be looking around and wondering who will pay the bills.

MrArchieBunker

May 2, 2014
5:32 p.m.

NO HUMAN IS A PARASITE, EVERY HUMAN IS A CHILD OF ALMIGHTY GOD.
FIX YOUR OWN FAILING LIFE FIRST BEFORE YOU SHOW YOUR IGNORANT HATE TOWARDS ALMIGHTY GODS CHILDREN.
GOD BLESS & GIVE YOU WISDOM TO UNDERSTAND THAT ONLY YOU ARE THE MASTER OF YOUR DESTINY 7 LIFE.
STOP BLAMING OTHERS FOR YOUR OWN FAILURES.:)
GOD BLESS:)
IF YOU TRULY WANT TO $UCC$EED GET THE BOOK, THE SECRETES OF THE MILLIONAIRE MIND BY HARV EKER:) GOOD LUCK.

MrArchieBunker

May 1, 2014
7 p.m.

GET A LIFE STOP SHOWING YOUR IGNORANCE & HATE TOWARDS ALMIGHTY GODS CHILDREN, BETTER YET GO VOLUNTEER TO A VETERANS / CHILDREN’S / CANCER HOSPITAL OR A SENIOR HOME YOU WILL BE DOING GOOD FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR NATION.

Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director U.S. Congress Washington, DC 20515
March 25, 2014 Honorable Nancy Pelosi Minority Leader U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Dear Madam Leader: As you requested, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has reviewed H.R. 15, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, as introduced on October 2, 2013. H.R. 15 would revise laws governing immigration and the enforcement of those laws, allowing for a significant increase in the number of noncitizens who could lawfully enter the United States on both a permanent and temporary basis. Additionally, the bill would create a process for many individuals who are present in the country now on an unauthorized basis to gain legal status, subject to requirements specified in the bill. The bill also would directly appropriate funds for tightening border security and enforcing immigration laws, and would authorize additional appropriations for those purposes. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have not completed a full, comprehensive cost estimate for H.R. 15. However, the bill is quite similar to the version of S. 744 that was reported by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 2013 (and later amended and passed by the Senate). Based on that similarity, we expect that enacting H.R. 15 would have effects on the population and the federal budget that would be quite similar to those of the committee-reported version of S. 744. Specifically, we expect that enacting H.R. 15 would increase direct spending and revenues by about the same amounts as S. 744, for a net reduction in federal budget deficits of about $200 billion over the 2015-2024 period and significantly greater amounts in the decade following 2024.
1
In addition to the cost estimate for S. 744, CBO prepared an analysis of the overall economic impact of that bill and of the incremental federal budgetary effects of those changes in the economy that were outside the
1. For more information, see CBO’s cost estimate for S. 744 as reported by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (June 18, 2013) at http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44225 and CBO’s cost estimate for S. 744 as passed by the Senate (July 3, 2013) at http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44397.

Honorable Nancy Pelosi Page 2 scope of the cost estimate for the bill. CBO has not prepared such an analysis for H.R. 15. However, based on the similarity of the legislation to the version of S. 744 that was reported by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, we expect that enacting H.R. 15 would have effects on output and income that would be quite similar to those of the committee-reported version of S. 744. Among other effects, the legislation would probably boost economic output, increase average wages for the entire labor force after about a decade (but decrease them before that), raise the amount of capital investment, and increase the productivity of labor and capital. On balance, we expect that the economic effects of H.R. 15 that would not be included in the cost estimate would have no significant net effect on federal budget deficits during the coming decade and would reduce deficits by a significant additional amount during the following decade.
2

Comparison of the Provisions of H.R. 15 with Those of S. 744
In 2013, CBO transmitted two cost estimates for S. 744 (which was also entitled the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act)—for a committee-approved version and a Senate- passed version of the legislation. The budgetary effects of H.R. 15 would be quite similar to those of the committee-approved version of S. 744. The first estimate for S. 744 was transmitted on June 18, 2013, and was for the version of the bill that was reported by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on May 28, 2013, including the amendments made in the star print of June 6, 2013. In that cost estimate, CBO estimated that, under the bill, the population of the United States would increase by 10.4 million people, on net, by 2023 (10 years after assumed enactment) and that roughly 8 million unauthorized residents would initially gain legal status (because those people would already be in the United States, that change in status would not increase the U.S. population). CBO and JCT estimated that enacting the legislation would generate changes in direct spending and revenues that would decrease federal budget deficits by $197 billion over the 2014–2023 period. The Senate amended S. 744 before passing it on June 27, 2013. CBO transmitted a letter summarizing its analysis of that version of S. 744 on July 3, 2013. For that Senate-passed version of the legislation, CBO estimated that the net population increase over the first 10 years after
2. For more information, see Congressional Budget Office,
The Economic Impact of S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act
(June 2013), http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44346.

Honorable Nancy Pelosi Page 3 enactment would be 9.6 million people—800,000 fewer than estimated for the committee-approved version of S. 744. That reduction stemmed from an amendment that would directly appropriate an additional $38 billion for the security of the southern U.S. border (relative to such funding in the committee-approved version). As a result of that appropriation and the consequent budgetary effects of having fewer unauthorized residents in the country (as well as the effects of other amendments), CBO and JCT estimated that changes in direct spending and revenues under the Senate- passed version of S. 744 would decrease federal budget deficits by $158 billion over the 2014-2023 period. H.R. 15 does not differ from the committee-reported version of S. 744 in any significant way; it differs from the Senate-passed version H.R. 15 of S. 744 mostly because H.R. 15 does not include the additional $38 billion in funding for border security that was in that version of the Senate bill (although it includes some such funding).
Differences in Timeline and in CBO’s Baseline Projections
Although H.R. 15 and the committee-reported version of S. 744 are very similar, if CBO and JCT were to prepare a full, comprehensive cost estimate for H.R. 15 now, the estimated effects on population and the federal budget would differ modestly from the effects for S. 744 that were estimated last year—primarily because the assumed enactment date would be different and because CBO has updated its baseline projections. However, the differences arising from those factors and others would be small relative to the size and scope of the budgetary effects of the legislation. Thus, the budgetary effects of H.R. 15 would be quite similar to those of the committee-approved version of S. 744. Last year’s cost estimate for S. 744 incorporated an assumption that the legislation would be enacted by the beginning of fiscal year 2014 and focused on the 10-year period from 2014 through 2023. For legislation that might be considered during the remainder of the current Congress, we would assume enactment near the start of fiscal year 2015 and focus on the 10-year period from 2015 through 2024. That shift in the timeline would have only a small impact on the estimated effects of the legislation on federal budget deficits through changes in direct spending and revenues. In addition, the shift would reduce estimated discretionary spending under the bill’s specified authorizations, but only by about $1 billion. That reduction would occur because those authorizations generally applied to the 2014-2018 period, which was the five-year period following the assumed

Honorable Nancy Pelosi Page 4 enactment of S. 744, and authorizations for 2014 would not lead to spending if the bill was enacted near the start of fiscal year 2015. The updates to CBO’s baseline projections (which incorporate the assumption that current laws will generally be unchanged) reflect updated forecasts for inflation, average benefits to be provided through various federal programs, and other factors. Those updates would have only a small impact on the estimated effects of the legislation on direct spending and revenues because most of the revisions to the baseline projections were fairly small.
Budgetary Effects in the Second Decade Following Enactment
CBO expects that H.R. 15—like S. 744—would lead to a significant reduction in federal budget deficits during the second decade after enactment (as well as during the first decade after enactment). CBO estimated that the committee-reported version of S. 744 would generate changes in direct spending and revenues that would reduce deficits by about $700 billion over that second decade. In light of the considerations discussed above, CBO expects that the budgetary effects of H.R. 15 during that second decade would be quite similar. I hope you find this information useful. If you have any questions, the primary CBO staff contact is Sam Papenfuss. Sincerely, Douglas W. Elmendorf Director cc: Honorable John Boehner Speaker Honorable Joe Garcia

Ironweeds

May 2, 2014
9:53 a.m.

The dishwashers and food pickers have strings of anchor babies that we have to feed, house, clothe, educate and provide medical care for.

Layla

May 2, 2014
10:35 a.m.

They TAKE from our economy, they don’t put anything into it.

MrArchieBunker

May 2, 2014
5:29 p.m.

THE ONLY ONES THAT TAKE FROM OUR ECONOMY IS THE TEA FARTIERS, WHO DON’T WORK.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, recently published a dynamic analysis of how immigration reform might affect GDP and projected that such a reform would increase GDP growth by 0.9% each year. Over a decade this would reduce the projected federal deficit by $2.7tn without raising taxes – largely through present taxation on more workers and rising incomes.

The Cato Institute commissioned a study by professor Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda of UCLA that projected $1.5tn in economic growth (pdf) in response to an immigration reform similar to the Senate plan and conversely should the United States take the advice of those who would deport all “illegal immigrants” the GDP would fall $2.6tn over the decade.

Economic Benefits of Reform:

Immigrant populations will increase the size of economic opportunity by creating new businesses and expanding the scope and quantity of economic production. These activities translate to positive affects on the broader economy. When reform was first introduced in 2007, the Congressional Budget Office analyzed President George W. Bush’s proposed immigration overhaul. The CBO, as Ezra Klein notes, found that modernizing the system would increase federal revenue by $48 billion while costing only $23 billion in increased public services — before even considering the broader economic benefits. There is general consensus across the ideological spectrum that the economic benefits to immigration reform will be a boon for the U.S. economy.

Factoring in broader economic benefits, research from the left-leaning Center for American Progress finds reform would add $109 billion additional tax revenue, create 121,000 jobs due to increased consumer spending, and add $832 billion in U.S. GDP over 10-years. Further, an analysis from the right-leaning American Action Forum illustrates that benchmark immigration reform would raise the pace of economic growth by nearly a percentage point over the near term, raise GDP per capita by over $1,500 and reduce the cumulative federal deficit by over $2.5 trillion. Think tanks compete with numbers and ideas. Finding two on as far on the opposite side of the spectrum as Center for American Progress and American Action Forum in agreement on an issue is a rare occurrence. The data and facts supporting immigration reform simply do not lie.

Immigration reform would generate $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue over three years,” the letter says. “The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office scored the bi-partisan 2012 comprehensive immigration reform bill that was proposed in the Senate as increasing federal revenues by $15 billion over the 2008-2012 period and by $48 billion over the 2008-2017 period.”

Studies from groups across the political spectrum have proven the economic and fiscal benefits of comprehensive immigration reform. By requiring illegal immigrants to register with the government, pay fees and back taxes, and correct their status, we can drastically expand our tax base. A report by the Center for American Progress found that passing comprehensive immigration reform would generate $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue over three years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office scored the bi-partisan 2007 comprehensive immigration reform bill that was proposed in the Senate as increasing federal revenues by $15 billion over the 2008-2012 period and by $48 billion over the 2008-2017 period.

In addition to expanding our tax base, economists have proven that comprehensive immigration reform would also increase wages for native workers, thereby boosting tax revenues generated by all workers. The CATO Institute found that forcing undocumented immigrants to get right with the law by registering with the government would boost the incomes of U.S. households by $180 billion in 2019, which would also lead to increased government revenues, without increasing tax rates.

Just like our budget deficit, immigration reform is an issue that we cannot afford to ignore. Bipartisan proposals that are tough, fair, and practical have garnered support from across the ideological spectrum in Congress, as well as from President Bush and the current administration. Comprehensive immigration reform would clearly help us reduce our deficit and debt, and would do so without raising tax rates.

US economy largely unaffected by illegal immigration

WASHINGTON — A study released Wednesday concludes that illegal-immigrant workers DO NOT drain jobs or tax dollars and have a neutral impact on the U.S. economy.
Because illegal immigrants occupy a small share of the work force — about 5 percent — and work low-skilled jobs at lower wages than other workers, their overall influence on the economy is trivial, according to the report, sponsored by the Migration Policy Institute, a pro-immigration think tank in Washington.
“The fate of the U.S. economy does not rest on what we do on illegal immigration,” said Gordon H. Hanson, author of the report and economics professor at the University of California-San Diego.
Illegal immigrants contribute a tiny 0.03 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, with that gain going to employers who save money on cheap labor, the report says, while their cost to the economy is 0.10 percent of GDP, which mainly comes from public education and publicly funded emergency health care.
The net impact at minus 0.07 percent of GDP means that illegal immigrants have an essentially neutral effect on the economy, Hanson said.
The report does not factor in the spending or entrepreneurship that illegal immigrants contribute to the economy, said Marc Rosenblum, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
Where illegal immigrants do have a substantial impact, Hanson added, is in specific labor-intensive and low-skilled industries such as agriculture, construction, hospitality and cleaning services, where the share of native-born workers has dropped precipitously.
Because the U.S. has dramatically raised the education level of its adult population in the last 50 years — going from about 50 percent of all working-age adults without a high school diploma in 1960 to just 8 percent today — the native-born, low-skilled work force has shrunk, while employers continue to require low-skilled workers.
This leaves room for illegal immigrants to take such jobs at a low cost, the report says.
Illegal immigrants now account for 20 percent of working-age adults in the U.S. who don’t have a high school degree.
While the influx of illegal immigrants is one of the factors keeping low-skilled wages stagnant, the biggest losers in the current system are legal low-wage workers, both native and foreign born, who compete with the illegal immigrants, Rosenblum said.
Meanwhile, employers reap higher profits because of lower labor costs and more productive businesses.
The solution to this imbalance, proposed by the Migration Policy Institute, is to provide more visas and legal channels for unskilled workers to enter the U.S.
Today, low-skilled workers must have a green card — effectively requiring them to have close family members in the U.S. — or obtain a temporary work visa.
“We really need to approach migration control comprehensively by both strengthening enforcements and creating legalization mechanisms that will control the unauthorized population and improve the economic outputs that we get from immigration,” Rosenblum said.

A bipartisan immigration bill passed in the Senate would strengthen the Social Security trust fund by adding millions of workers to tax rolls, and provide a boost to the overall economy, according to an analysis Wednesday by the Social Security Administration.

The finding came in a letter to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who requested the analysis, from Stephen C. Gross, chief actuary for the agency.

It could provide a boost for the immigration bill, which has been attacked by some conservatives as overly costly, as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to take up the legislation for amendments and votes beginning Thursday. Meanwhile, a separate dispute loomed as religious leaders warned that adding a gay rights provision to the immigration legislation could cost their support.

Gross’ analysis said the immigration bill would boost Social Security’s coffers by more than $240 over the coming decade and add $64 billion in new tax revenues to Medicare. It also would increase the size of the economy by a full percentage point by 2017, and increase employment.

Gross wrote that the overall effect of the bill on the long-range trust fund balance “will be positive.”

Social Security has long-term financial problems because, as more people retire and live longer, there will be relatively fewer workers paying into the system. In 1960, there were 4.9 workers paying Social Security taxes for each person getting benefits. Today, there are about 2.8 workers for each beneficiary, a ratio that will drop to 1.9 workers by 2035 under current law, according to projections by the Congressional Budget Office.

The actuary’s letter suggests the immigration bill would slow this trend. Under the bill, there would be nearly 6.6 million more workers paying Social Security taxes in 2024, the actuary projects. That same year, there would be an additional 683,000 people getting benefits. That’s nearly 10 additional taxpayers for each new beneficiary.

The Social Security analysis is the first government analysis to quantify economic impacts from the far-reaching bill authored by Rubio and seven other senators, both Democratic and Republican. The legislation came under attack earlier this week in a disputed report from the conservative Heritage Foundation, which claimed the bill would cost $6.3 trillion over 50 years as newly legalized immigrants consume government benefits without paying an equal amount in taxes.

The Social Security analysis doesn’t attempt to determine the overall cost of the bill. That figure will be provided by the Congressional Budget Office, which has not yet released its projections.

But the analysis does measures some impacts of the bill, which aims to secure the border, create new avenues for workers to come legally to the U.S., ensure employers don’t hire workers here without legal status, and give a path to citizenship to the millions already here illegally.

The analysis finds that of about 11.5 million immigrants here illegally who would be eligible under the bill, around 8 million would apply for and be granted legal status. Many would immediately become taxpayers, but the bill prevents them from receiving government benefits for over a decade.

Mexico was the second-largest export market for U.S. goods in 2011, according to the office of the U.S. trade representative. U.S. trade with Mexico totaled $500 billion in 2011 AND HAS GROWN SINCE THEN.

Tim

May 4, 2014
6:42 p.m.

If more, unskilled, uneducated people is such a wonderful benefit, we should start encouraging our children to drop out of school right now!

Ugh.

MrArchieBunker

May 2, 2014
5:27 p.m.

EDUCATE YOURSELF, START THINKING FOR YOURSELF. NOT FAUX NEWS POLITICAL SPIN AND LIES.

America’s exceptional status as a “nation of immigrants” is being challenged by globalization, which is making both migration and terrorism much easier. The biggest challenge for policymakers is distinguishing illusory immigration problems from real problems. One thing is quite clear: The favored approach of recent years-a policy of benign neglect-is no longer tenable. Members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives recognize this and deserve credit for striving to craft a comprehensive law during this session of Congress.
In 2005, immigration policy received far more genuine attention on Capitol Hill, and Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are now considering what to do about immigration policy. Their various efforts have focused on a wide variety of changes in current policy, including improving border security, strengthening employer verification of employment, establishing a new temporary guest worker program, and offering some level of amnesty to illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. At present, these proposals are working their way through the legislative process.
However, to achieve results, immigration reform must be comprehensive. A lopsided, ideological approach that focuses exclusively on border security while ignoring migrant workers (or vice versa) is bound to fail. If Congress passes another law that glosses over the fundamental contradictions in the status quo, then the status quo will not change. Thinking through the incentives is the key to success.
The Real Problem
Illegal immigration into the United States is massive in scale. More than 10 million undocumented aliens currently reside in the U.S., and that population is growing by 700,000 per year.[1] On one hand, the presence of so many aliens is a powerful testament to the attractiveness of America. On the other hand, it is a sign of how dangerously open our borders are.
Typical illegal aliens come to America primarily for better jobs and in the process add value to the U.S. economy. However, they also take away value by weakening the legal and national security environment. When three out of every 100 people in America are undocumented (or, rather, documented with forged and faked papers), there is a profound security problem. Even though they pose no direct security threat, the presence of millions of undocumented migrants distorts the law, distracts resources, and effectively creates a cover for terrorists and criminals.
In other words, the real problem presented by illegal immigration is security, not the supposed threat to the economy. Indeed, efforts to curtail the economic influx of migrants actually worsen the security dilemma by driving many migrant workers underground, thereby encouraging the culture of illegality. A non-citizen guest worker program is an essential component of securing the border, but only if it is the right program.
It is important to craft a guest worker program intelligently. While there are numerous issues involved in such a program, many of which are beyond the scope of this paper, the evidence indicates that worker migration is a net plus economically. With this in mind, there are 14 principles- with an eye toward the economic incentives involved-that should be included as part of a guest worker program.

Immigration Benefits and Costs

An honest assessment acknowledges that iILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS BRING REAL BENIFITS TO THE SUPPLY SIDE OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, which is why the business community is opposed to a simple crackdown. There are economic costs as well, given America’s generous social insurance institutions. The cost of securing the border would logically exist regardless of the number of immigrants.
The argument that immigrants harm the American economy should be dismissed out of hand. The population today includes a far higher percentage (12 percent) of foreign-born Americans than in recent decades, yet the economy is strong, with higher total gross domestic product (GDP), higher GDP per person, higher productivity per worker, and more Americans working than ever before. immigration may not have caused this economic boom, but it is folly to blame immigrants for hurting the economy at a time when the economy is simply not hurting. As Stephen Moore pointed out in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal:
The increase in the immigration flow has corresponded with steady and substantial reductions in unemployment from 7.3 percent to 5.1 percent over the past two decades. And the unemployment rates have fallen by 6 percentage points for blacks and 3.5 percentage points for Latinos.[2]
Whether low-skilled or high-skilled, immigrants boost national output, enhance specialization, and provide a net economic benefit. The 2005 Economic Report of the President (ERP) devotes an entire chapter to immigration and reports that “A comprehensive accounting of the benefits and costs of immigration shows the benefits of immigration exceed the costs.”[3] The following are among the ERP’s other related findings:
Immigrant unemployment rates are lower than the national average in the U.S.;
Studies show that a 10 percent share increase of immigrant labor results in roughly a 1 percent reduction in native wages-a very minor effect;
Most immigrant families have a positive net fiscal impact on the U.S., adding $88,000 more in tax revenues than they consume in services; and
Social Security payroll taxes paid by improperly identified (undocumented) workers have led to a $463 billion funding surplus.
The macroeconomic argument in favor of immigration is especially compelling for highly educated individuals with backgrounds in science, engineering, and information technology. The increasing worry about outsourcing jobs to other nations is just one more reason to attract more jobs to America by insourcing labor. If workers are allowed to work inside the U.S., they immediately add to the economy and pay taxes, which does not happen when a job is outsourced. Therefore, capping the number of H-1B visas limits America’s power as a brain “magnet” attracting highly skilled workers, thereby weakening U.S. firms’ competitiveness.
Congress increased the number of H-1B visas by 20,000 in November 2004 after the annual cap was exhausted on the first day of fiscal year (FY) 2005.[4] On August 12, 2005, the U.S. citizenship and immigration Service announced that it had already received enough H-1B applications for FY 2006 (which began October 1, 2005) and would not be accepting any more applications for the general selection lottery.[5] These and other numbers show that more workers from abroad, not fewer, are needed.
Still, critics of this type of insourcing worry that jobs are being taken away from native-born Americans in favor of low-wage foreigners. Recent data suggest that these fears are overblown. While the nation’s unemployment rate generally has remained just above 5 percent over the past year, unemployment in information technology now stands at a four-year low of 3.7 percent.[6]
While the presence of low-skill migrant workers can be construed as a challenge to low-skill native workers, the economic effects are the same as the effects of free trade-a net positive and a leading cause of economic growth. A National Bureau of Economic Research study by David Card found that “Overall, evidence that immigrants have harmed the opportunities of less educated natives is scant.”[7] The consensus of the vast majority of economists is that the broad economic gains from openness to trade and immigration far outweigh the isolated cases of economic loss. In the long run, as has been documented in recent years, the gains are even higher.[8]
A simple example is instructive in terms of both trade and immigration. An imaginary small town has 10 citizens: some farmers, some ranchers, a fisherman, a tailor, a barber, a cook, and a merchant. A new family headed by a young farmer moves to town. His presence is resented by the other farmers, but he also consumes from the other business in town-getting haircuts, eating beef and fish, having his shirts sewn and pressed, and buying supplies at the store, not to mention paying taxes. He undoubtedly boosts the supply side of the economy, but he also boosts the demand side. If he were run out of town for “stealing jobs,” his demand for everyone’s work would leave with him.
The real problem with undocumented immigrant workers is that flouting the law has become the norm, which makes the job of terrorists and drug traffickers infinitely easier. The economic costs of terrorism can be very high and very real, quite apart from the otherwise positive economic impact of immigration. In order to separate the good from the bad, there is no substitute for a nationwide system that identifies all foreign persons present within the U.S. It is not sufficient to identify visitors upon entry and exit; rather, all foreign visitors must be quickly documented.
Economic Principles for an Effective Guest Worker Program
To this end, 14 economic principles should be borne in mind in crafting an effective guest worker program:
All guest workers in the U.S. should be identified biometrically. Technologically, a nationwide system of biometric identification (fingerprints, retina scans, etc.) for visitors has already been developed for the US-VISIT program. A sister “WORKER-VISIT” program is essential for enforcement efforts and would help American companies to authenticate guest workers efficiently. There is at present no effective system of internal enforcement, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has in place a “basic pilot employment verification program”[9] that demonstrates the potential effectiveness of using such technology with guest workers to discourage undocumented work arrangements. Employers who want to hire guest workers should be required to verify electronically that the particular worker has registered with WORKER-VISIT and is eligible to work in the United States.
Existing migrant workers should have incentives to register with the guest worker program. A guest worker program that is less attractive to migrant workers than the status quo will fail. Therefore, the new law for guest workers should include both positive incentives for compliance and negative incentives (punishments) for non-compliance. For example, a program that caps the tenure of guest workers at six years can be expected to experience massive noncompliance at the six-year point because a hard cap on tenure is essentially an incentive to skirt the law. If the goal is to limit the number of undocumented foreign workers, then renewable short-term work permits have a greater likelihood of success than a single permit with an inflexible expiration date.
U.S. companies need incentives to make the program work. immigration reform will be successful if-and probably only if-American companies support its passage and enforcement. A new law must therefore avoid both onerous red tape (e.g., requiring an exhaustive search of native workers before a job can be offered to migrants) and any provision that would make it easier to hire guest workers than it is to hire natives (e.g., waiving payroll taxes on guest workers that must be paid on native worker payrolls). Perhaps the most important incentive is a negative one: The new law should include funding for a system of internal enforcement to police and prosecute companies that break the law.
Guest worker status should not be a path to citizenship and should not include rights to U.S. social benefits. If the incentive to work in the U.S. is artificially enhanced with a promise of potential citizenship, foreign migrants will be oversupplied. citizenship carries with it tremendous benefits (e.g., social spending and entitlement programs) that should be provided only to American citizens. For example, unemployment insurance benefits should never go to foreign visitors. Providing benefits such as unemployment insurance, welfare, Head Start, and other payments to visiting workers will significantly distort the incentives to migrate to the U.S. The legal status equivalent of guest workers is that of tourists-people who reside in America temporarily and are bound by U.S. law but do not have any claim on citizenship or its benefits.
Efficient legal entry for guest workers is a necessary condition for compliance. Existing illegal migrants should be required to leave the U.S. and then allowed a system of entry through border checkpoints with strict conditions for identification, documentation, and compliance with U.S. law. If the guest worker program instead involves prolonged waits for reentry or a lottery for work visas, existing migrant workers will have little incentive to comply with the law. Moreover, such reforms will be perceived as attempts to shrink the supply of migrant labor and will be resisted. However, a program of efficient legal entry for migrants who comply with biometric identification will not deter compliance and will encourage migrants to utilize the formal channels of entry rather than jumping the border.
Efficient legal entry should be contingent upon a brief waiting period to allow law enforcement agencies the time needed to screen incoming workers. A waiting period of at least a few days will give law enforcement agencies time to screen incoming visitors’ biometrics against criminal and terrorist databases.
Provisions for efficient legal entry will not be amnesty, nor will they “open the floodgates.” Such a system will actually encourage many migrants to exit, knowing that they will be able to return under reasonable regulations. This is in stark contrast to the status quo, in which the difficulty and uncertainty of reentering the U.S. effectively discourage aliens from leaving. Documented migrant workers would enter a new status: not citizen, not illegal, but rather temporary workers.

As for opening the floodgates, the reality is that they are already open. More to the point, labor markets operate effectively to balance supply and demand, and those markets are currently in balance. Creating a new category of legal migrants would not change that equilibrium, provide unfair benefits to undocumented aliens over others, or be tied to citizenship, but it would enhance security.
Government agencies should not micromanage migrant labor. Any federal attempt to license migrants by occupation-micromanaging the market for migrant labor-would be a dangerous precedent and would likely fail. Socialized planning of any market is inferior to the free market, and its implementation is dangerous on many levels. First, allowing government management of the migrant labor market would be terrible precedent for later intrusion into all U.S. labor markets. Second, it would be open to abuse, vulnerable to corruption, and inefficient even if run by angels.

For example, in the case of a worker certified as an avocado picker who has carpentry skills that his employer would like to utilize and promote, why should the worker and his employer have to petition a labor Department bureaucrat just to revise the worker’s skill certification? Equally implausible is a program that requires migrants and businesses to know one another prior to entry and file the relevant paperwork. labor markets do not work this way. Such schemes would quickly prove ineffective and lead right back the status quo. Real labor markets work informally, and the power of the market should be utilized to make the guest worker program function efficiently.
The guest worker program should not be used as an excuse to create another large federal bureaucracy. The inherent risk of authorizing a new guest worker program is that it will establish a new, unwieldy federal bureaucracy that outgrows its budget and mandate. Critics contend that the federal government is ill-equipped to handle the substantial influx of people who would enter the U.S. through a guest worker program. They further cite the long backlogs that plague other immigration programs, most notably the green card program.

One way to alleviate this problem is to involve the private sector in the guest worker visa process, much as gun retailers are integrated into the criminal background checks of gun buyers. Many parts of the guest worker visa process could be facilitated by contracting out certain parts of the process, including paperwork processing, interviewing of visa candidates (if necessary), coordinating with the DHS and federal law enforcement agencies on background checks, facilitating placement with prospective employers, and facilitating the exit upon expiration of the visa. As long as the private contractor has no conflict of interest in the visa selection or placement process, such a system should be better than another federal bureaucracy.
Bonds should be used to promote compliance after entry. There are many smart ways that bonds could be used to manage the immigrant pool. In one system, guest workers would pay upon entry for a bond that is redeemable upon exit. An individual who wanted to recoup the money would comply with the overall guest worker system and other U.S. laws, effectively acting as part of a self-enforcing network that discourages non-bonded, undocumented migrants. An alternative arrangement would have U.S. companies paying for the bonds as a right to hire some number of workers. If Congress felt compelled to cap the number of guest workers, the bonds could be treated like property rights and bid on to establish the market value of a guest worker. In both cases, the dollar value of the bond would be repaid after the migrant exited the U.S. but would be forfeit if the migrant went into the black market economy.
Guest workers should be required to find a sponsoring employer within one month (or some other reasonable period of time). The employer would verify via WORKER-VISIT that the particular worker is eligible to be employed in the United States. If the migrant cannot locate an employer within the time frame, the law should require that he or she leave the country. A sponsorship system is an efficient alternative to government management of the supply of and demand for migrant labor. It would be self-checking because employers could be required to submit payroll records regularly for automated review, which would identify the guest workers at each location. If employment with a sponsor ended, the worker would be allowed a similar reasonable period of time to find a new employer. Existing undocumented workers should find it relatively easy to get sponsorship with current employers, so the act of leaving the country and reentering would neither discourage their compliance nor come at the expense of legal migrants.
Day laborers should be required to find long-term sponsoring employers. The presence of tens of thousands of day laborers in the U.S.[10] may seem to pose a challenge to immigration reform, but the day labor market should not be given an exemption. A functioning WORKER-VISIT program would likely motivate the creation of intermediary firms that employ day laborers and connect them with customers in a more formal market that develops along the lines of subcontracting firms that are already active in gardening, house-cleaning, janitorial services, accounting, and night security. Intermediary firms could offer day laborers in teams of variable sizes, allowing the hiring firms to avoid the hassles of sponsoring and documentation paperwork. Skeptics might protest that most subcontracted jobs are routine (even regularly scheduled), whereas day labor is by nature last-minute and unpredictable. However, that is not really true in the aggregate, especially when compared with other last-minute industries like plumbing/flood control or emergency towing. Competitive firms can meet demand with very little slack as long as free-market incentives are in place.
Migrants and employers who do not comply with the new law should be punished. Migrants who decline to register and are subsequently apprehended inside the U.S. should be punished with more than deportation. Deportation is not a disincentive. The Cornyn-Kyl bill (S. 1438) contains a good proposal along these lines: a 10-year ban on guest worker participation for migrants who do not comply with the new program.[11] Congress should also consider a lifetime prohibition on violators’ applying for and receiving U.S. citizenship. The law should introduce steep penalties as well, including prison time and seizure of assets of undocumented workers and their employers. There is no justification for working outside the system, especially a system that allows free entry. The law would establish a date certain after which all migrants in the U.S. must be registered or face these penalties. The lifetime ban on the opportunity to acquire U.S. citizenship would be a strong incentive for undocumented immigrants to enter the process of documentation. Likewise, firm, consistent, enforced penalties against employers would create the proper incentives for compliance.
All migrants should respect American law and traditions. The requirement to obey all laws is not optional for new citizens and should not be optional for visitors. While we encourage and insist on the primacy of American values for those who join our workforce, we should also remember the full spectrum of values ourselves. The Statue of Liberty reminds us that we are all equal, regardless of ethnicity, origin, or even state of wretchedness, and that America will continue to be a land of opportunity.
Conclusion
The century of globalization will see America either descend into timid isolation or affirm its openness. Throughout history, great nations have declined because they built up walls of insularity, but America has been the exception for over a century. It would be a tragedy if America were to turn toward a false sense of security just when China is ascending with openness, Western Europe is declining into isolation, and the real solution is so obvious from our own American heritage.
Tim Kane, Ph.D., is Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy and Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., is a Senior Policy Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.

MrArchieBunker

May 1, 2014
7:01 p.m.

FACTS are that MAINLY the REPUBLICAN RED STATES ARE THE ONES DRAINING OUR ECONOMY. HERE THEY ARE. EDUCATE YOURSELVES:)

Many would consider conservative ideas if there were any proof that it results in a better world. All the proof shows otherwise. Conservative states are poorer, sicker, less free, and more immoral. When conservatives rule the federal government everything gets worst. The deficit goes up, the national debt climbs, the economy falters.

The GOP / Republicans & Tea Partiers have an Illness that is worse than cancer its called OBAMISITIS :-).

TheGOP / Republicans think that we all are FOLLIES like their RED STATE CONSTITUENTS :) HA HA HA THE JOKE IS ON THEM.:)

The states with the

LOWEST levels of education

LOWEST levels of income

HIGHEST rates of poverty

HIGHEST rates of welfare and food stamps

HIGHEST rates of illegitimate brats are RED STATES – ya know all your dveoted trailer park denziens in the south who don’t have any teeth and slurp their cheap beer as they watch FAUX News

So no – the UNDERCLASS is typically Republican.

(and of those with more than BA – they voted D, not R.

Ds get the super-educated,

R’s get the trailer park trash high school dropouts who live on welfare, food stamps and Sec 8 while popping out illegitimate brats that go on Medicaid and who rant about ‘those people’ while they waive their Confederate Flag.)

Frankly, If you’re an American who doesn’t have to worry about all those obstacles, and you were born with advantages that come with U.S. citizenship, and you still find yourself losing out to undocumented workers, YOU SHOULDN’T BE COMPLAINING You should be EMBARRASSED.

Tim

May 4, 2014
6:43 p.m.

If you remove the Obama-voters out of the red states, what does your equation show?

America’s exceptional status as a “nation of immigrants” is being challenged by globalization, which is making both migration and terrorism much easier. The biggest challenge for policymakers is distinguishing illusory immigration problems from real problems. One thing is quite clear: The favored approach of recent years-a policy of benign neglect-is no longer tenable. Members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives recognize this and deserve credit for striving to craft a comprehensive law during this session of Congress.
In 2005, immigration policy received far more genuine attention on Capitol Hill, and Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are now considering what to do about immigration policy. Their various efforts have focused on a wide variety of changes in current policy, including improving border security, strengthening employer verification of employment, establishing a new temporary guest worker program, and offering some level of amnesty to illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. At present, these proposals are working their way through the legislative process.
However, to achieve results, immigration reform must be comprehensive. A lopsided, ideological approach that focuses exclusively on border security while ignoring migrant workers (or vice versa) is bound to fail. If Congress passes another law that glosses over the fundamental contradictions in the status quo, then the status quo will not change. Thinking through the incentives is the key to success.
The Real Problem
Illegal immigration into the United States is massive in scale. More than 10 million undocumented aliens currently reside in the U.S., and that population is growing by 700,000 per year.[1] On one hand, the presence of so many aliens is a powerful testament to the attractiveness of America. On the other hand, it is a sign of how dangerously open our borders are.
Typical illegal aliens come to America primarily for better jobs and in the process add value to the U.S. economy. However, they also take away value by weakening the legal and national security environment. When three out of every 100 people in America are undocumented (or, rather, documented with forged and faked papers), there is a profound security problem. Even though they pose no direct security threat, the presence of millions of undocumented migrants distorts the law, distracts resources, and effectively creates a cover for terrorists and criminals.
In other words, the real problem presented by illegal immigration is security, not the supposed threat to the economy. Indeed, efforts to curtail the economic influx of migrants actually worsen the security dilemma by driving many migrant workers underground, thereby encouraging the culture of illegality. A non-citizen guest worker program is an essential component of securing the border, but only if it is the right program.
It is important to craft a guest worker program intelligently. While there are numerous issues involved in such a program, many of which are beyond the scope of this paper, the evidence indicates that worker migration is a net plus economically. With this in mind, there are 14 principles- with an eye toward the economic incentives involved-that should be included as part of a guest worker program.

Immigration Benefits and Costs

An honest assessment acknowledges that iILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS BRING REAL BENIFITS TO THE SUPPLY SIDE OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, which is why the business community is opposed to a simple crackdown. There are economic costs as well, given America’s generous social insurance institutions. The cost of securing the border would logically exist regardless of the number of immigrants.
The argument that immigrants harm the American economy should be dismissed out of hand. The population today includes a far higher percentage (12 percent) of foreign-born Americans than in recent decades, yet the economy is strong, with higher total gross domestic product (GDP), higher GDP per person, higher productivity per worker, and more Americans working than ever before. immigration may not have caused this economic boom, but it is folly to blame immigrants for hurting the economy at a time when the economy is simply not hurting. As Stephen Moore pointed out in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal:
The increase in the immigration flow has corresponded with steady and substantial reductions in unemployment from 7.3 percent to 5.1 percent over the past two decades. And the unemployment rates have fallen by 6 percentage points for blacks and 3.5 percentage points for Latinos.[2]
Whether low-skilled or high-skilled, immigrants boost national output, enhance specialization, and provide a net economic benefit. The 2005 Economic Report of the President (ERP) devotes an entire chapter to immigration and reports that “A comprehensive accounting of the benefits and costs of immigration shows the benefits of immigration exceed the costs.”[3] The following are among the ERP’s other related findings:
Immigrant unemployment rates are lower than the national average in the U.S.;
Studies show that a 10 percent share increase of immigrant labor results in roughly a 1 percent reduction in native wages-a very minor effect;
Most immigrant families have a positive net fiscal impact on the U.S., adding $88,000 more in tax revenues than they consume in services; and
Social Security payroll taxes paid by improperly identified (undocumented) workers have led to a $463 billion funding surplus.
The macroeconomic argument in favor of immigration is especially compelling for highly educated individuals with backgrounds in science, engineering, and information technology. The increasing worry about outsourcing jobs to other nations is just one more reason to attract more jobs to America by insourcing labor. If workers are allowed to work inside the U.S., they immediately add to the economy and pay taxes, which does not happen when a job is outsourced. Therefore, capping the number of H-1B visas limits America’s power as a brain “magnet” attracting highly skilled workers, thereby weakening U.S. firms’ competitiveness.
Congress increased the number of H-1B visas by 20,000 in November 2004 after the annual cap was exhausted on the first day of fiscal year (FY) 2005.[4] On August 12, 2005, the U.S. citizenship and immigration Service announced that it had already received enough H-1B applications for FY 2006 (which began October 1, 2005) and would not be accepting any more applications for the general selection lottery.[5] These and other numbers show that more workers from abroad, not fewer, are needed.
Still, critics of this type of insourcing worry that jobs are being taken away from native-born Americans in favor of low-wage foreigners. Recent data suggest that these fears are overblown. While the nation’s unemployment rate generally has remained just above 5 percent over the past year, unemployment in information technology now stands at a four-year low of 3.7 percent.[6]
While the presence of low-skill migrant workers can be construed as a challenge to low-skill native workers, the economic effects are the same as the effects of free trade-a net positive and a leading cause of economic growth. A National Bureau of Economic Research study by David Card found that “Overall, evidence that immigrants have harmed the opportunities of less educated natives is scant.”[7] The consensus of the vast majority of economists is that the broad economic gains from openness to trade and immigration far outweigh the isolated cases of economic loss. In the long run, as has been documented in recent years, the gains are even higher.[8]
A simple example is instructive in terms of both trade and immigration. An imaginary small town has 10 citizens: some farmers, some ranchers, a fisherman, a tailor, a barber, a cook, and a merchant. A new family headed by a young farmer moves to town. His presence is resented by the other farmers, but he also consumes from the other business in town-getting haircuts, eating beef and fish, having his shirts sewn and pressed, and buying supplies at the store, not to mention paying taxes. He undoubtedly boosts the supply side of the economy, but he also boosts the demand side. If he were run out of town for “stealing jobs,” his demand for everyone’s work would leave with him.
The real problem with undocumented immigrant workers is that flouting the law has become the norm, which makes the job of terrorists and drug traffickers infinitely easier. The economic costs of terrorism can be very high and very real, quite apart from the otherwise positive economic impact of immigration. In order to separate the good from the bad, there is no substitute for a nationwide system that identifies all foreign persons present within the U.S. It is not sufficient to identify visitors upon entry and exit; rather, all foreign visitors must be quickly documented.
Economic Principles for an Effective Guest Worker Program
To this end, 14 economic principles should be borne in mind in crafting an effective guest worker program:
All guest workers in the U.S. should be identified biometrically. Technologically, a nationwide system of biometric identification (fingerprints, retina scans, etc.) for visitors has already been developed for the US-VISIT program. A sister “WORKER-VISIT” program is essential for enforcement efforts and would help American companies to authenticate guest workers efficiently. There is at present no effective system of internal enforcement, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has in place a “basic pilot employment verification program”[9] that demonstrates the potential effectiveness of using such technology with guest workers to discourage undocumented work arrangements. Employers who want to hire guest workers should be required to verify electronically that the particular worker has registered with WORKER-VISIT and is eligible to work in the United States.
Existing migrant workers should have incentives to register with the guest worker program. A guest worker program that is less attractive to migrant workers than the status quo will fail. Therefore, the new law for guest workers should include both positive incentives for compliance and negative incentives (punishments) for non-compliance. For example, a program that caps the tenure of guest workers at six years can be expected to experience massive noncompliance at the six-year point because a hard cap on tenure is essentially an incentive to skirt the law. If the goal is to limit the number of undocumented foreign workers, then renewable short-term work permits have a greater likelihood of success than a single permit with an inflexible expiration date.
U.S. companies need incentives to make the program work. immigration reform will be successful if-and probably only if-American companies support its passage and enforcement. A new law must therefore avoid both onerous red tape (e.g., requiring an exhaustive search of native workers before a job can be offered to migrants) and any provision that would make it easier to hire guest workers than it is to hire natives (e.g., waiving payroll taxes on guest workers that must be paid on native worker payrolls). Perhaps the most important incentive is a negative one: The new law should include funding for a system of internal enforcement to police and prosecute companies that break the law.
Guest worker status should not be a path to citizenship and should not include rights to U.S. social benefits. If the incentive to work in the U.S. is artificially enhanced with a promise of potential citizenship, foreign migrants will be oversupplied. citizenship carries with it tremendous benefits (e.g., social spending and entitlement programs) that should be provided only to American citizens. For example, unemployment insurance benefits should never go to foreign visitors. Providing benefits such as unemployment insurance, welfare, Head Start, and other payments to visiting workers will significantly distort the incentives to migrate to the U.S. The legal status equivalent of guest workers is that of tourists-people who reside in America temporarily and are bound by U.S. law but do not have any claim on citizenship or its benefits.
Efficient legal entry for guest workers is a necessary condition for compliance. Existing illegal migrants should be required to leave the U.S. and then allowed a system of entry through border checkpoints with strict conditions for identification, documentation, and compliance with U.S. law. If the guest worker program instead involves prolonged waits for reentry or a lottery for work visas, existing migrant workers will have little incentive to comply with the law. Moreover, such reforms will be perceived as attempts to shrink the supply of migrant labor and will be resisted. However, a program of efficient legal entry for migrants who comply with biometric identification will not deter compliance and will encourage migrants to utilize the formal channels of entry rather than jumping the border.
Efficient legal entry should be contingent upon a brief waiting period to allow law enforcement agencies the time needed to screen incoming workers. A waiting period of at least a few days will give law enforcement agencies time to screen incoming visitors’ biometrics against criminal and terrorist databases.
Provisions for efficient legal entry will not be amnesty, nor will they “open the floodgates.” Such a system will actually encourage many migrants to exit, knowing that they will be able to return under reasonable regulations. This is in stark contrast to the status quo, in which the difficulty and uncertainty of reentering the U.S. effectively discourage aliens from leaving. Documented migrant workers would enter a new status: not citizen, not illegal, but rather temporary workers.

As for opening the floodgates, the reality is that they are already open. More to the point, labor markets operate effectively to balance supply and demand, and those markets are currently in balance. Creating a new category of legal migrants would not change that equilibrium, provide unfair benefits to undocumented aliens over others, or be tied to citizenship, but it would enhance security.
Government agencies should not micromanage migrant labor. Any federal attempt to license migrants by occupation-micromanaging the market for migrant labor-would be a dangerous precedent and would likely fail. Socialized planning of any market is inferior to the free market, and its implementation is dangerous on many levels. First, allowing government management of the migrant labor market would be terrible precedent for later intrusion into all U.S. labor markets. Second, it would be open to abuse, vulnerable to corruption, and inefficient even if run by angels.

For example, in the case of a worker certified as an avocado picker who has carpentry skills that his employer would like to utilize and promote, why should the worker and his employer have to petition a labor Department bureaucrat just to revise the worker’s skill certification? Equally implausible is a program that requires migrants and businesses to know one another prior to entry and file the relevant paperwork. labor markets do not work this way. Such schemes would quickly prove ineffective and lead right back the status quo. Real labor markets work informally, and the power of the market should be utilized to make the guest worker program function efficiently.
The guest worker program should not be used as an excuse to create another large federal bureaucracy. The inherent risk of authorizing a new guest worker program is that it will establish a new, unwieldy federal bureaucracy that outgrows its budget and mandate. Critics contend that the federal government is ill-equipped to handle the substantial influx of people who would enter the U.S. through a guest worker program. They further cite the long backlogs that plague other immigration programs, most notably the green card program.

One way to alleviate this problem is to involve the private sector in the guest worker visa process, much as gun retailers are integrated into the criminal background checks of gun buyers. Many parts of the guest worker visa process could be facilitated by contracting out certain parts of the process, including paperwork processing, interviewing of visa candidates (if necessary), coordinating with the DHS and federal law enforcement agencies on background checks, facilitating placement with prospective employers, and facilitating the exit upon expiration of the visa. As long as the private contractor has no conflict of interest in the visa selection or placement process, such a system should be better than another federal bureaucracy.
Bonds should be used to promote compliance after entry. There are many smart ways that bonds could be used to manage the immigrant pool. In one system, guest workers would pay upon entry for a bond that is redeemable upon exit. An individual who wanted to recoup the money would comply with the overall guest worker system and other U.S. laws, effectively acting as part of a self-enforcing network that discourages non-bonded, undocumented migrants. An alternative arrangement would have U.S. companies paying for the bonds as a right to hire some number of workers. If Congress felt compelled to cap the number of guest workers, the bonds could be treated like property rights and bid on to establish the market value of a guest worker. In both cases, the dollar value of the bond would be repaid after the migrant exited the U.S. but would be forfeit if the migrant went into the black market economy.
Guest workers should be required to find a sponsoring employer within one month (or some other reasonable period of time). The employer would verify via WORKER-VISIT that the particular worker is eligible to be employed in the United States. If the migrant cannot locate an employer within the time frame, the law should require that he or she leave the country. A sponsorship system is an efficient alternative to government management of the supply of and demand for migrant labor. It would be self-checking because employers could be required to submit payroll records regularly for automated review, which would identify the guest workers at each location. If employment with a sponsor ended, the worker would be allowed a similar reasonable period of time to find a new employer. Existing undocumented workers should find it relatively easy to get sponsorship with current employers, so the act of leaving the country and reentering would neither discourage their compliance nor come at the expense of legal migrants.
Day laborers should be required to find long-term sponsoring employers. The presence of tens of thousands of day laborers in the U.S.[10] may seem to pose a challenge to immigration reform, but the day labor market should not be given an exemption. A functioning WORKER-VISIT program would likely motivate the creation of intermediary firms that employ day laborers and connect them with customers in a more formal market that develops along the lines of subcontracting firms that are already active in gardening, house-cleaning, janitorial services, accounting, and night security. Intermediary firms could offer day laborers in teams of variable sizes, allowing the hiring firms to avoid the hassles of sponsoring and documentation paperwork. Skeptics might protest that most subcontracted jobs are routine (even regularly scheduled), whereas day labor is by nature last-minute and unpredictable. However, that is not really true in the aggregate, especially when compared with other last-minute industries like plumbing/flood control or emergency towing. Competitive firms can meet demand with very little slack as long as free-market incentives are in place.
Migrants and employers who do not comply with the new law should be punished. Migrants who decline to register and are subsequently apprehended inside the U.S. should be punished with more than deportation. Deportation is not a disincentive. The Cornyn-Kyl bill (S. 1438) contains a good proposal along these lines: a 10-year ban on guest worker participation for migrants who do not comply with the new program.[11] Congress should also consider a lifetime prohibition on violators’ applying for and receiving U.S. citizenship. The law should introduce steep penalties as well, including prison time and seizure of assets of undocumented workers and their employers. There is no justification for working outside the system, especially a system that allows free entry. The law would establish a date certain after which all migrants in the U.S. must be registered or face these penalties. The lifetime ban on the opportunity to acquire U.S. citizenship would be a strong incentive for undocumented immigrants to enter the process of documentation. Likewise, firm, consistent, enforced penalties against employers would create the proper incentives for compliance.
All migrants should respect American law and traditions. The requirement to obey all laws is not optional for new citizens and should not be optional for visitors. While we encourage and insist on the primacy of American values for those who join our workforce, we should also remember the full spectrum of values ourselves. The Statue of Liberty reminds us that we are all equal, regardless of ethnicity, origin, or even state of wretchedness, and that America will continue to be a land of opportunity.
Conclusion
The century of globalization will see America either descend into timid isolation or affirm its openness. Throughout history, great nations have declined because they built up walls of insularity, but America has been the exception for over a century. It would be a tragedy if America were to turn toward a false sense of security just when China is ascending with openness, Western Europe is declining into isolation, and the real solution is so obvious from our own American heritage.
Tim Kane, Ph.D., is Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy and Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., is a Senior Policy Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.

Ironweeds

May 2, 2014
9:51 a.m.

We need rid of the welfare dependent parasites.

Layla

May 2, 2014
10:34 a.m.

La Raza at it’s finest. Ever heard of enforcing the laws? Amnesty or legalization makes a mockery of every law abiding immigrant who ever came to this country LEGALLY to settle here and become an American. What does La Raza do? They fly MEXICAN FLAGS, they make demands.

Right now, millions of Americans are out of work because of the policies of this President, this Congress. Bringing in more illegals will end their dreams of ever finding work.

That is NOT how America works.

MrArchieBunker

May 2, 2014
5:25 p.m.

FACTS ARE ALL THAT MATTER. I DID NOT SAY A WORD ABOUT MEXICAN FLAGS. WHAT ABOUT THE DIFFERENT THAT FLY THEIR FLAGS? I LIVE IN NEW YORK AND EVERY OTHER WEEK THERE IS A PARADE OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES FLYING THEIR OWN FLAGS :)

Tim

May 4, 2014
6:43 p.m.

Balkanization is so fun!!

wigglwagon

May 1, 2014
10:14 p.m.

If the feds are going to prosecute that Congressman from New York for tax evasion and fraud just because he was exploiting illegal workers, what are they going to do about the thousands of other employers who are doing exactly the same thing? They better get busy prosecuting all the grass trimmers and roofers and farmers? They are all guilty of tax evasion and fraud. If they go after all of them, the employers will have to go back to hiring legal workers and abiding by the tax laws and the labor laws.

That will put at least 8 million law abiding workers back on jobs and paying taxes instead of having to collect welfare. That will save America hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars. We actually can do away with the deficit if we go back to enforcing the laws. With Republicans helping all those American workers, it won’t matter how the supporters of illegals vote.

sashley

May 2, 2014
10:13 a.m.

What is the meaning of our citizenship when the rewards awarded to illegal aliens by the U.S. Congress and “The One” trumps the penalty for their illegal presence and gives them financial advantages over citizens and those who came here the right way? The ones who did not break our laws to get here.

Layla

May 2, 2014
10:24 a.m.

Now this is an interesting article and demonstrates to me that Ms. Pelosi must be pretty desperate to attempt to make a campaign out of the GOP position on illegal immigration. I say this because I happen to know that her own party is not in agreement on this issue. Don’t believe me? Have the courage to attempt to pass something before the November elections and see what happens to the Congress on election day. Go ahead.

ErikKengaard

May 2, 2014
3:38 p.m.

Amazing that the people of California place such members in Congress.

Tim

May 4, 2014
6:45 p.m.

California is increasingly illegal alien. If this continues, Texas will be sending their own Pelosis to Washington. They already send people who think man planted a flag on Mars.